Please feel free to contact me by phone or email.

Tel: +44 (0) 7980 840 960

Email: shani@shanigrewal.com

For his 17th birthday, Shani was given a Sankyo Super CM 300 Super 8mm camera. There was no looking back. He was now a director. Family and friends were roped into performing for his silent films which he also edited. Along with the ocassional wedding.

In 1981, Shani got a BA (Hons) degree in Film and Television Studios from Harrow College. His graduation film was an adaptation of William Golding’s PINCHER MARTIN, the story of a man whose soul survives death but is stranded on a rock island waiting for salvation. He shot it on 16mm and on location in London, Devon and Cornwall for the princely sum of £1,400.

Three years later Shani made his first professional film, VENGEANCE, starring Edward Hardwicke. Shot on 35mm in Wales, the film was released in 1986 by 20th Century Fox as a support featurette to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s COMMANDO and was one of six finalists for a best short film Oscar in 1986.

For several years, Shani worked for Noel Cronin at Dandelion Distribution. Here he developed projects for film and televsion and got to direct John Hurt in the trilogy THEATRE OF SUSPENSE.

In 1991, Shani wrote and directed his first feature film: AFTER MIDNIGHT for Film 4. Shot in Dublin and starring Saeed Jaffrey, Hayley Mills and the late Ian Dury. As Head of Production for the BES company, String of Pearls plc, Shani’s next feature was DOUBLE distributed by New World and starring Norman Wisdom, William Katt, Bernard Hill, Gemma Craven and Simon Ward.

It was in 1996 that Shani made his third feature film, the infamous GURU IN 7, about a twenty-something Indian lad who accepts a bet to make love to 7 women in 7 days in order to be named a Guru. Made on a shoestring budget of £33,000, Shani wrote, produced, directed and spent nine months in a freezing cold Pinewood Studios basement editing the film. It was worth it. Way ahead of its time, GURU is now a cult classic.

During this period Shani developed CRIME OF THE CENTURY, his next movie, with the Samuelson Productions, Miramax, Film 4 and the newly formed UK Film Council. When the project fell through at the last minute, Shani decided to give the feature film world a break and go into television drama.

Over the past eight years he has directed for HOLLYOAKS, BROOKSIDE and GRANGE HILL for Mersey TV; GREASE MONKEYS, HOLBY CITY and CASUALTY for the BBC (a CASULATY/HOLBY CITY special he directed in 2005 won a prestigious Peabody Award); SINGLE VOICES for ITV; DREAM TEAM for Sky; SOUL ASIA for Sony; LE HIP PARADE for Tiger Aspect.  He also directed four series of MAKATANO JUNCTION in Kenya for Media Productions and MOTHERS AND DOCTORS for Media Pro in Bucharest.

Early in 2009, Shani made a promo for SILAS GORE in Romania to give an idea for the look of the film. He filmed for one day and was helped, gratis, by the crew of MOTHERS AND DOCTORS and actor friends. The promo can be viewed on www.silasgore.com.